Midterms are a not so great part of college

So last time that I left off, I just returned from a spring break bender vacation to Ireland with the marching band. Since then, my life has consisted mostly of doing homework and studying for midterms. Since I live inconveniently far from campus, if I don’t want to be driving around late at night that means I am just have to go home to study at night. Because let’s be honest, everyone studies best between the hours of 11 and 2. Well, that is if their roommates have enough self awareness to turn the TV down after midnight. That, however, is a rant for another time. Preferably still one where my roommates have no idea this blog exists

However being at home all evening has a number of wonderful advantages. I’ve been wildly productive in my programming thanks to not having to work on a windowed editor over wireless. I will definitely miss 200mb fibre this summer! It also turns out that if you actually put forth enough time studying the material, difficult courses become less daunting. There are some disadvantages however…

Purdue gives me too much junk food

I will preface this by saying that everything that follows is merely an excuse and that this is purely a result of poor self control. Purdue pushes all of the incoming freshman to get their unlimited meal plans. They sound great on paper: eat as many meals in the dining courts as you want (my record is going to dinner at 4 different dining courts during the meal period) and you also get 8 swipes per week to use at the various on campus restaurants and grocery-esque stores. There is one tiny problem with this though. I never have the time or the desire to go to the restaurants on campus save the rare meal after work. So, being the cynical, jaded student everyone should be, I can’t let Purdue win those swipes. Because of course, any swipes you don’t use disappear every week if you don’t eat them.

So what’s my solution? I go to the little on-the-go markets that they have at some dining courts. It’s great! One meal swipe can become 4 snack items. This means every week, I come home with 32 new junk food items. Now, lets assume that I do the majority of my snacking during the week. (weekends are obviously spent at coordinated “study sessions” and recovering from said study sessions). So unless my pantry is doomed to become an ever-expanding pile of chips and peanuts, I need to eat 6 items day. Well more importantly, 6 items a night because I’m not home during the day. There is a problem there involving the disruption of intermittent fasting, but again, a post for another day.

But those number are a little scary, plus its hard to hold 32 bags of chips in your hands while in line. So I usually give a significant portion of swipes to upperclassmen living off campus for those sweet, sweet brownie points. I’m still left with consuming about 4 snack items a night at a minimum. This is also due to me stocking up last semester by not eating my snacks. The combination of always being home, always having way too many snacks, and needing to get rid of all my food before I move out, has left to a serious problem.

So what happened to running?

Well like I mentioned before, when I did a lot of running in high school it was mostly for mental health reasons. Which has majorly improved since leaving Athens. Rural Appalachia, not even once. Midterms have been doing a good job at keeping me stressed enough though so what gives? Well there are several good things you can do while running: Listen to music, think to yourself, enjoy nature, listen to a book or podcast. But there is one very important thing lately that I cannot do while running: homework. Luckily there is something I can do for stress relief while doing homework! Eating! Remember before when I said this was all going to be me justifying bad habits as out of my control?

So midterm season has brought on more eating. I just need to run more. I know. I’m very much planning on running a lot in Houston this summer. (A post on my job is coming “eventually”. ) So all is well…

I swear, I’m fine

The good news though is that midterms are over for me tomorrow night and I can start caring for myself again. That is, in between packing my life here up to move to Texas for the summer. Also, that means that I absolutely am writing this instead of studying. After this week all I have left is finals…. That shouldn’t be too bad right?…

 

 

right?